So, I have been removed from my guild's progression team because I play a DPS assassin. Even though I have been parsing second in the guild behind a sniper, the raid leaders are claiming two marauders are an optimal setup. I know for a fact that assassin DPS is competitive but the Internet hates us right now. You guys think my guild is right to kick me, or are they just being stubborn elitists?

If your team isn't having fun, they will have reduced enthusiasm for the game, and burn out faster. It's really that simple.

Maybe make a deal? "If we really, absolutely need his DPS and having healing covered, he can always switch over and bring down the pain train, but otherwise we don't want him to burn out. We're playing a game here, the entire point is to have fun, so get off our back about it. He'll get better."

On the one hand its a game, but if you're trying to do focused progression and someone is doing a role suboptimally on purpose that is an issue.

I would love to DPS in raids. I enjoy it a lot more than healing, but honestly I'm pretty mediocre so I stick to the role I'm good at. If I wanted to try and force the issue, I would be hurting the 15 other people in the raid which definitely isn't fair to any of them.

I think the difference with my group is that we suck anyway. We've been stuck on hm operator for more than 2 months now. We all have at least half 72 gear augmented. We're also all good friends that have been in this group for months now. If he wants to heal then be my guest.

We do it differently - DPS/DPS, DPS/DPS, tank/heal, tank/heal. The first two DPS are our best ones; ranged DPS is in the middle on orange. But the wrinkle's in the last two - the tanks are always the ones channeling. Two healers free to keep the one tank up is perfectly feasible, and our DPS typically manage to kill yellow cores before the second add on yellow comes out, so it's not too much trouble for the tank that's up that phase.

In the main raid group, we have no problems at all with this and works well as we one shot everything. If we used lesser geared and/or underexperienced players, we'll deliberately fail yellow by having 1 or 2 DPS kill a single core only but everyone goes mid to kill droids. When yellow starts again, just repeat (1 or 2 dps on core, everyone else mid).

When I was level 50 in a PUG we had a Healer who was... bad. Really, really bad. But she loved healing.

However, she was hindering the group's progress and no one wanted to kick her despite her being the cause of wipes.

In my case, I got burnt out on Tanking but I was apparently really awesome at it. Old guild didn't let me heal very often when I even begged to. :( (Except in PvP, everyone loves a PvP healer but I wanted to Tank in PvP... GAH!)

Here's the deal: as a raid leader you have to choose the player and the class. If the sentinel is a comperable player then there is no reason choose an assassin over a sent. It's a shitty fact, but that's life. If you are a better player and are actually parsing well then your rl is an idiot and you should be happy to get out of dodge and find a better group that isn't a slave to public opinion.

Currently, Marauder damage is much more consistent and requires less ideal circumstances and gear to get the best out of it. There are certainly DPS shadows / assassins that are capable of keeping up with the best-of-the-best of the other classes (such as Wild-berry), it's much easier to just take a similar player (or the same player) of a different class and get equal or better results.

And I haven't even bothered to discuss utility.

If you truly were consistently No. 2 in your group, then the ones below you are doing something wrong (unless they are significantly less geared or something along those lines). In that case, it's on them.

Even assuming that the Sin player can consistently parse as highly as the person he's losing his spot to (possible if unlikely), it all doesn't matter if they're hitting enrage. Maybe the 15% from Bloodthirst would make up some difference, or maybe they're interested in the utility and surviveability the mara has.

Unless you are joining a guild who's SPECIFIC goal is to achieve the highest level of progression and numbers (you should know this before going in, if that IS you're thing that's cool too), then you should be allowed to play any character that you can succeed at the raid with.

In our guild, people switch all over the place all the time. As long as they have the right gear for the fight, we go! Half the time we go even if we don't and think we can carry!

Its weird. Once a class/spec gets a certain reputation, that seems to become the reality. As you point out, the parses don't seem to matter. Your performance doesn't seem to matter. No--the internet forums have said Assassin DPS is low and now you're benched.

It reminds me of how certain video games can't seem to overcome negative perception issues ...

League of Legends has a similar issue, compounded by the fact that the community makes the SWTOR official forums look tame by comparison.

People have a hard time remembering that a character/class's reputation is a reflection of its viability, not the other way around. It's one of the reasons I left LoL. I played a champ in a roll no one expected and got yelled at even though I did well. A month later people realize how broken that very combo is and it becomes flavor of the month. A week later the devs nerf it because it's getting out of hand.

TL;DR If someone isn't willing to even entertain the possibility that they may be incorrect, their opinion is worthless.

If someone isn't willing to even entertain the possibility that they may be incorrect, their opinion is worthless.

That's a very true statement. It's incredibly rare on the internet to have a reasoned, civil debate about something, and even more rare to find someone who is open to changing their mind in the face of a more compelling argument.

That being said, I really enjoy SWTOR, and have very few issues with it (still would like my female toon to hook up with Mako, lol).

We run with a dps sin in our NIM's and have had moderate success (sometimes we have no options for class makeup). He's able to do good dps but not in line with sniper/mara. There have been fights were we had to rotate him out for other classes. He's a good player but the numbers dont lie. I'm curious what numbers your getting compared to the sniper and maras that are taking ur place. Replacing you with bad playing maras isn't going to help if they aren't getting big numbers. For reference, most fights show our sniper at 2500-2900, my merc at 2400-2600, and the sin at 2000-2300. When he's not at his best we hit enrage. To this end I can understand the raid leads worry about class makeup. When you're in NIM, you can't really carry any weight and Sins are unfortunately gimped a bit. PS i know the BEST players can make any class work, but most can't.

As the sin he is referring to, I concur. I've spent many hours looking for tips or modifications to my rotation priority/gear and feel like there isn't much to do past a certain point. Its a shitty fact but conditions in a fight have to line up pretty well for me to exceed 2300, and that's with zero mistakes. At the same time I get the impression that snipers/maras pretty effortlessly keep it up at 2500+. I never fault our raid leaders for replacing me when dps is an issue because I feel part of being a good player is knowing your class limitations, and this game still has enormous imbalances that I really wish would be corrected.

dilih.eu got world first on the toughest boss in the game to date with the toughest dps check in the game to date without any marauders (pre-nerf NiM Dread Guards). There was a veng jug in their group.

So, I have been removed from my guild's progression team because I play a DPS assassin. Even though I have been parsing second in the guild behind a sniper, the raid leaders are claiming two marauders are an optimal setup. I know for a fact that assassin DPS is competitive but the Internet hates us right now. You guys think my guild is right to kick me, or are they just being stubborn elitists?

Class matters so much less than people. I think your raid leaders are idiotic for kicking you from progression when you parse second highest DPS in the guild. Actual performance is what matters. If only the sinper can out-DPS you, then either (1) assassin DPS is fine, or (2)
the other DPS are significantly under-performing their classes and should be the ones kicked.

Anyway, Assassin DPS is much better than its internet reputation suggests in terms of actual performance (much as I hate to agree with BW, they do have an ability besides their execute that increases damage on enemies at less than 30%, and their execute is the strongest in the game -- in comparison, snipers parse high on the dummy but don't get a huge DPS increase from their execute). Didn't the world-first group to clear the Dread Guard in NM Asation, when it was still broken and believed impossible to clear, have an assassin DPS?

You can always make a player better but you can't fix a bad build or class.

Some people get better. I would guess that more don't, because they don't have the awareness or don't want to put in the effort. And in the time you're waiting for a marauder or a merc to start performing to expectations, classes may well be rebalanced in any event. There's no reason to kick the second-highest DPSin your raid (well, unless he or she is an asshole).

Well I don't know their side of the story so it's hard to say. If you've got empirical evidence that you're performing at the same (or better) level as the other dps in your group then their decision sounds a bit irrational. Although perhaps you've reached the upper limits of what's capable whereas the other dps still have some gearing to do? In general, it is much harder to hit very high dps values with Assassins than it is with Snipers or Marauders (from what I've seen anyway). Having said that, if your group is lacking dps then the rational thing (usually) is to focus on the weakest dps first (unless they have some other utility or are the GM's girlfriend).

Having said that, there's often more to these things. People might cite objective reasons which sound impartial but often there's some sort of underlying issue (personality clash / desire to get a friend a spot / etc). Frankly, they might just think you're not good enough (sorry to sound harsh). Groups don't handle conveying that sort of thing well and again, prefer to resort to stock excuses to avoid the confrontation. Telling a team member that they're not good enough is hard - particularly if you've not had experience with dealing with such situations through work or similar.

When it is 100% a class thing (and a group still think someone is a great player) then they can offer to help them switch classes. With a decent group helping you, you can level a new 55 and be geared in high-end PVE gear scarily quickly. And that assumes you're starting from scratch (which most of the time you won't be).

I have to opposite problem. We have a DPS Assassin in our raid team that consistently puts out far less damage than the rest of us, putting the pressure on the other three of us to make up for it, but our raid leaders refuse to replace them for whatever reason.

I think by design assassins deal most of their damage in the >30% range. Their execute ability has the shortest cool down but the biggest hit, and they can spec for it to reduce its force cost as well as increasing all damage output when the target is below 30%. Check the parsers then.

Not even elitist. They are followers of elitist. An elitist would either not have him there in the first place or would look at the data and realize that his other ops members aren't performing up to standards and look at them rather than him.

So long as you can pull the numbers and hold your own there is no reason beyond that to drop someone purely based on sub class. It's idiotic and selfish. A good guild looks to improve it's members, not alienate them. Your guild are not right to drop you on the ground that you're a DPS Assassin alone. If you're not doing the damage required and you're showing no improvement and dedication to improving, then there's an issue. Beyond that? No, I can see no reason why. Even then, I'd go into TORParse, check how Assassin's are doing in those exact fights, show them to your team and say "This guy parses for 2900 in DreadGuard Nightmare and is world first, 2800 is what I parse for so HAH!" Well, maybe leave the HAH part out.

I can see how an ops leader would want double the utility a marauder brings to operations. DPS assassin doesn't bring any abilities that provide benefits to the entire ops group like a Marauder does. Is it correct to assume that your now former ops group was struggling to clear NiM ops? If yes then what was the mood of your ops group? A lot of frustration? You didn't provide a lot in the way of details so for me it's difficult to fairly assess your ops leader's decision to kick you.

That being said, if you were #2 parsing DPS in your group then it's hard to see how the ops leader's decision was justified. The only thing I can think of is that if your group was struggling with clearing ops and frustration level of the group was fairly high then the ops leader may feel it necessary to make a change rather than keep banging away with the same composition.

Regarding damage output and raid utility, it's true that there is no reason to choose an assassin dps over a mara. Mara provides Bloodlust, Predation, better defensive cooldown, and way more damage output. Equally skilled and geared as an assassin you cannot compete with them (I main assassin).

If you want to clear NiM content, you need the most optimal group composition, and the most skilled player. If you do parse 2nd in your raid roster as an assassin, you are by far a better player than your dps guildies.
*If you raid leader kicked you for the sole reason of being a non optimal class, he have no idea of how to manage a roster. A good player with a meh class is WAY better than a meh player with a good class.

I play on Darth Nihilus and I'm friend with some of the frog players, and they do have a Tank assassin in their 16 NiM roster. He's extremely skilled and nice, and they would never "change" him because he's able to be an excellent tank, even while playing a non optimal class for a 16 NiM roster. Don't forget that cohesion between guild members is as important as optimization.

as long as you were always second in parses it sounds like a bonehead move and you are best to move on anyways. That being said assassins have pretty weak sustained dps but are great on fights with short bursts, like on the TFB in NiM for instance. are assassins viable for end game Yes, Would i want a 4 assassins as my dps hells no :P

i hear ya. i've been leveling a Vanguard recently. nothing but hate from my groups cause im a DPS Vanguard. i've tried tanking but i can't get into it right now (about 20ish). maybe later it gets more fun but right now i'll stick to DPS and get kicked out of progression when he gets to 55

A friend of mine plays PT in NiM content and is usually parsing higher in fights than the other more "optimal" classes. I think he did about 2800 dps on Styrak in hm befor the NiM raids came out. So usually it isnt the class its the player!

I haven't played SWTOR for long, but as a raid leader back in Vanilla WoW, I have to say I'd rather a good, clever player over whatever class/spec was just buffed or whatever was all the rage on the internet. I'm going to vote that your guild is stubborn elitists. Find some better people and have fun showing up your old guild.

DPS assassins do parse lower than marauders in optimal conditions. If you aren't beating enrage timers because of low DPS, raid leaders have to switch out people without guildies getting butthurt.

However, DPS assassins are viable for NiM content and if you are keeping up, performing mechanics correctly, on time for raids, etc., than there is no reason to drop you. On top of the fact that two marauders in annihilation are handcuffing each other with the fact that they can't build stacks off each other's bloodthirst. If they are in different spec's and are parsing higher than you or are better raiders than I can't really blame the guild.

They are elitist mindset. They think that 2 maras are better than you. I personally think that having 2 maras actually cripple a raid group due to not being able to use their raid buffs at the same time. Its obviously not you if you are #2 in dps behind a sniper.

I feel bad for the sin tanks as well. I have seen squishy sin tanks and I have seen sin tanks that aren't as squishy. I think there is a huge stigma with Sin's overall. People need to get over it.

I raided an Enhancement Shaman in WoW from BC to Cata, I feel your pain. But I could play my class and did the research to remain in the top of the DPS charts, and we were one of the top progression guilds on our server.

Unless you're playing on the absolute forefront of endgame progression, where Player Skill plateaus, it will always trump Class Balance.

DPS assassins do stink if the rest of your group is top-notch but it sounds like they're not so that is lame that you were given the boot. Even considering they do stink you can still clear it with them in a group.

DPS assassins are totally viable and are likely to see some rebalancing in the future. But the OP's raidmaster read some posts from some loudmouths on the internet saying "Assassins are terrible! Wah wah wah!"

And for whatever reason, they decided to believe the noisemaking strangers, rather than the numbers and the results right in front of them.

Every class and spec is reasonably viable in endgame content. The only problem is, some are demonstrably better than others or in situations where they are not precisely "better," they are easier.

As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, and all over, a mediocre player running a Marauder or a Sniper is going to, with a fair amount of consistency, beat the pants off a mediocre player running any other DPS class.

But a competent, experienced player is always, always going to have a massive advantage over any mediocre character, no matter what classes are involved.

In the much-ridicululed Class Rep Q&A regarding Sorcs from a couple weeks ago (source of the "heal to full" joke), one of the comments from the Devs actually made sense. (It was maybe the only one that did!)

To paraphrase and expand the meaning: A lot of the classes and builds in SWTOR are pretty easy to learn to play, but several of them are very difficult to master.

If you put in the time, and do your homework, and gear yourself up right, you can play a DPS assassin, and so long as you don't have an idiot for a GM, you'll probably find a home in a raid team someday, if that's what you want.

mate if i knew what server you were on and could actually offer you the NiM content your after for op's you would have an invite from my guild in no time, however our progression team is stalled at HM operator IX.

however, i know my guild isn't alone when we take the player not the character first for a group, any group whether it's progression or just assing around and kicking the hell of lower end content. our philosophy is that a player can always develop with a group and guild, its stupid to think you can just pick the best and roll on through to the detriment of the whole, thats how guilds fail and shut down.

shop around for a new guild, but leave your current guild on good terms if you must, no sense in burning a bridge there if you can avoid it. take the time to really have a good talk with prospective guilds aswell find out what they're looking for and more importantly what they're like as people before joining, i know it sounds like common sense but the number of people i've seen join a guild and hate it and burn out quickly is amazing, the number of people i've grouped with over the last few months then found myself inviting to my guild is also growing, turns out a bunch of misfits and reject Australians can be fun on harbinger lol

Seriously man, just re-roll. Especially since this game pushes having multiple toons anyways, just roll a Mara or sniper! We have a member in our raid group who's gone from dps'n on his Sorc, to dps'n on his Powertech, back to dps'n on his Sorc just to make our raid group that much stronger. (I actually tell him to level up his sniper, but who knows, maybe they'll buff PT's or Sorc's next patch)

Sure, you might be a pretty decent assassin, but what else do you bring to the raid besides being able to do decent dps? Stealth Rez'n, and that's pretty much it. Now what do snipers/mara's bring to the raid? Raid wide buffs, raid wide shield, along w/ doing decent dps.

If your guild's fairly casual, sure bring in w/e dps and just have fun. But most serious competitive progression guilds will not take a Sin dps.

I main a sniper for our Core runs, but I'll dps on my Jug if we're just doing a fun alt run.